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Island preservation funds still lagging

REPORTER FILE PHOTO Assemblyman Fred Thiele Jr. released the Community Preservation Fund numbers that still show Shelter Island lagging for the first six months of 2014.
REPORTER FILE PHOTO
Assemblyman Fred Thiele Jr. released the Community Preservation Fund numbers that show the Island lagging for the first six months of 2014.

While most of the East End is continuing to recover from a downturn in Community Preservation Fund revenues that accrue from a tax paid by real estate buyers, Shelter Island is still stumbling, according to figures just released by Assemblyman Fred Thiele Jr. (I-Sag Harbor).Revenues for the first six months of 2014 for the Island are down 5.2 percent as compared with the revenues at the same time in 2013. Last year, the Island’s CPF had garnered $1.16 million in those months and this year the figure is $1.1 million.

East Hampton also showed a decline of 3.2 percent with revenues at $14.33 million in 2013 and $13.87 million this year.

Despite the downturn in the two towns, overall, East End Towns showed a 4.3 percent increase in CPF revenues, up from $43.87 million in 2013 to $45.76 million for the same period this year.

Riverhead showed the greatest gain at 68.9 percent in CPF revenues from $1.06 million last year to $1.79 million in 2014.  Southold was second, up by 30.8 percent or $2.21 million in revenues this year as compared with $1.69 million last year. Southampton came in at an 4.6 percent increase at $26.79 million as compared with $25.62 million the previous year.

Mr. Thiele characterized the overall East End increase as showing steady grown reflecting the “continued strength and stability in East End real Estate.”

Real estate professionals on the Island have been predicting a turnover with many properties in contract that have been slow to close.

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